politicalbetting.com

Last week’s odds on favourite now third in the betting

Just a week ago the Lib Dem President, Simon Hughes was riding high in the betting and was odds on to become the next leader. Now all has changed as a result, apparently, of nothing that he said or did. It is just that the sentiment has moved away from him.

Two things seem to have happened: the acting leader, Ming Campbell put up a reasonable performance at Prime Minister’s Questions and there has been Mark Oaten - who first pulled out of the this and then, yesterday, was the subject of “rent boy” allegations in the News of the World.

What seems to be a big factor behind the current move away from Hughes is that fact that he is unmarried. The 64 year old Ming Campbell increasingly looks like a safer choice.

Latest best prices are:- Campbell 0.73/1: Huhne 3.1/1: Hughes 4.9/1.

The way this race has gone up and down anything could happen - so don’t rule Hughes out yet. If something happened that reinforced worries about Ming’s age or health then he could appear attractive again.

Mike Smithson

Sorry for the delay but here are some pictures from last weekend’s PBC party. If people could identify who is who in the comments I will fill in the gaps.

Picture one- Iain Dale, David Davis’s chief of staff and owner of Politicos with, behind the beer glass, Guido.

Picture two

Picture three ? left and David Kendrick right

Picture four - ??, Valerie and Tom Thumb

Picture five Anthony Wells with Guido still trying to protect his identity!!

Picture six ??, Paul Maggs and Peter Cuthbertson

Mike Smithson

Could Huhne be the beneficiary?

With the revelations in the News of the World about Mark Oaten and a rent boy and the admission by the party leader in the House of Lords, Lord McNally about his drinking problem it is not a good Sunday for the party.

Given the circumstances of Charles Kennedy’s departure only fifteen days ago the question has to be asked about the damage this is doing.

For all of this so quickly could make the party appear a bit of joke and this could undermine the efforts of activists ahead of the May local elections. For more than Labour and the Tories the Lib Dems look to hard work by supporters to get their vote out.

Any diminution of efforts ahead of May 4th could be seen in the results. In a way the leadership election could be very useful as a way of drawing a line under what has gone on.

That there could be revelations of this type about somebody who only four days ago was a candidate for the leadership is damaging amd one wonder why Oaten allowed his name to go forward knowing that this might emerge.

It is hard to assess the impact of the news on the leadership vote. My instinct is that it will undermine Simon Hughes and help Chris Huhne.

Canadian Election Game Paul Maggs has devised an excellent game on the Canadian General Election - for details email here.

Mike Smithson

The PB.C comment that could make me richer

At 7.39 am on January 11th Alex posted this short comment on the site. It read simply “Apparently Huhne has 5 certain backers among MPs. Why is he still 200-1?”

For gamblers like me there is something very seductive about a long-shot and within a few seconds of reading Alex’s comment I had taken the £20 bet at 200/1 that was available on the Betfair betting exchange as well as £22 at 150/1.

For those not familiar with betting exchanges Betfair is not a bookmaker laying bets itself. Rather it brings together people who went to back, like me on this occasion, and those who want to be like a bookmaker and lay bets. The layer is in effect betting against the proposition. So the maximum I could get on was that which other punters were prepared to lay.

In the ten days since then Chris Huhne’s challenge has gathered pace and now, with just three contenders left in the race, the Betfair price is at 6.2/1.

Maybe this is wishful thinking brought on by the prospect of being several thousand pounds richer but I am starting to think that he might have a realistic chance. Huhne seems to offer a freshness and an originality of thought not shared by Hughes and Campbell and this is very appealing.

There is little doubt that Campbell’s problems are his age, questions about his health, and the “Ming the Merciless” tag that he has acquired for his part in the downfall of Charles Kennedy.

Hughes, meanwhile, has a strong and committed following but he probably does not have the support to take him over the 50% mark in the first count. At that stage the second choice votes of those going for the third in the ballot will be redistributed. If Ming is the one who drops out my guess is that Huhne would pick up the lion’s share his first preferences.

If Hughes is in third place then Huhne is well set as well to get the second preferences. So if Huhne can avoid last place in the first round then his chances of taking it are high.

In the absence of a new Lib Dem members’ poll this is all guess work - but I think even Huhne’s current price tag is good value.

UPDATE: New Mori Poll: The January survey in today’s Sun has the following party shares with comparisons on the pollster’s December poll:- CON 39 (-1): LAB 39 (+8): LD 15 (-6).

Unlike the other pollsters carrying out monthly surveys Mori does not weight by past vote recall and so is much more vulnerable to sample error. As we point out repeatedly phone polls usually have a hit ratio 6-1 calls to successful interviews.

The pollster is thus reliant on those that it manages to reach using randomised unsolicited phone calls being representative. The heavy weight of data over many years shows that such respondents tend to be more Labour-inclined than the population as a whole.

Mike Smithson

Meanwhile the money piles on Ming

Less than 24 hours after having to pull out of the Lib Dem leadership race a bookmaker has opened market on whether Mark Oaten will retain his seat at the General Election.

The opening prices are 4/7 that he will and 5/4 that he won’t.

This is an interesting bet because if the Tories do manage to sustain a recovery then Lib Dem seats like Winchester could be vulnerable. Oaten is a formidable campaigner and I would not bet against him.

In the main leadership market punters have been piling onto Ming Campbell who now stands at 0.84/1 with Simon Hughes having moved out to 2.2/1. There’s been a big move behind Chris Huhne who has now tightened to 7.2/1.

Mike Smithson

No sign yet of a let-up in the Cameron honeymoon

In the first posting of 2006, just nineteen days ago, we noted that the Cantor Spreadfair General Election - Commons seat spreads market opened the year on CON 260-267: LAB 296-303: LD 53-57. Taking the mid-points the collective view of punters was CON 265.5: LAB 299.5: LD 55 seats.

In this form of gambling the number of seats a party gets becomes like a share price. If you think that Labour will do better you BUY at the high end of the spread. Your winnings or losses are calculated by multiplying the difference, plus or minus, of your agreed price by the stake you have placed. What’s attractive to many punters is the ability to close down a position at any time and take a profit or cut down a loss.

So if this was the general election result Labour, presumably under Brown, would be 33 MPs short of an overall Commons majority.

Clearly this is being driven by the continued good media coverage for Cameron’s Conservatives and the continuing spats within Labour on education policy.

The received wisdom is that parties which are split get punished in the polling booths and the sight of the former Labour leader, Lord Kinnock, launching a full broad-side on Tony Blair’s plans cannot help.

Within the next week there should be the January ICM poll in the Guardian and the YouGov poll in the Telegraph.

Mike Smithson